Organizations
by Pyralis Anacreon
Summary: Two groups with experience in dealing with shady organizations meet. Both are less than happy about it.
1. Oragnizations

Organizations

* * *

Two groups with experience in dealing with shady organizations meet. Both are less than happy about it.

* * *

The System Lords were being relatively quiet, the Earth was not in danger, nothing was in imminent danger, and things were generally coasting along well at the SGC. Which was why Jack O'Neill wanted to leave before something happened to make all this lovely normalcy go away. And he was taking his team with them, because God knew Sam and Daniel needed to see their own planet's sun every once in a while, and Teal'c would spend the entire time they had off hanging around the training rooms and spooking off everyone who knew better than to try to spar with him. Just to make sure they actually showed, they were all going in the same car.

That was Jack's first mistake.

Put one sarcastic Colonel, one socially inept, science geek of a Major, an alien who still finds your culture to be utterly ridiculous, and an archaeologist that gets more like the sarcastic Colonel every day, into the same _small _car, and you get an awkward silence punctuated by Jack trying to make conversation and Daniel's dirty looks. Jack had had to drag the man away from his rocks. Sam was being a bit better about it all, but probably only because she was in the military and used to following orders she didn't really want to. And Teal'c... was as unreadable as ever. He could be fuming under all his Jaffa stoic-ness, and they'd never know it.

In reality, Teal'c found this whole situation to be very amusing. Though he wasn't looking forward to the 'fishing' Jack most likely had planned.

The car ride up to Jack's cabin was uncomfortable, but Jack was sure that once there things would cheer up a bit. Sam had already admitted to liking the peacefulness of fishing, and Daniel would grill Teal'c about Jaffa life. Everyone would be happy.

Jack's second mistake was honestly expecting things to go as planned.

It started with a tree across the road, not half a mile from his cabin. They weren't getting over it, or around it.

"Oh well. Looks like we can't go after all. So sad. You'll just have to take us back--"

"Shut up, Daniel. We can walk the rest of the way." Jack near-snapped at him, but without any real anger. Would the man just accept that he was going through with this and get over it already?

Jack could see Daniel holding in a disappointed, yet knowing, sigh. He rolled his eyes.

The four went around to the trunk, got their bags--one each, they knew how to pack light--and were off. Thankfully, the open air was more stimulating to the conversation than the car.

"Looks like rain."

"Will you stop being so negative?!...And did you _really_ just start with a comment on the weather?"

* * *

All those missions where they had to stay undetected had given all four a near-silent walk, and it had become habit. Because of the tree across the road, their noisy car was parked a half a mile back. And conversation had died down by the time they reached the cabin.

Each of those things could be directly blamed for their capture. Seeing as their captors were a bunch of runaways, the kids would probably have scattered if they'd made a bit more noise about their arrival.

What Jack couldn't understand was how a teenage girl had taken down _Teal'c_. It was unthinkable, impossible. It just couldn't _be_.

It had all happened very quickly. Jack turning the key in the lock and not feeling the slight resistance of the bolt turning, throwing a look over his shoulder that told them all _'We've got unwelcome company' _and then bursting through the door with guns already drawn. At first scan, there was nobody home, but a second look showed him poorly hidden bodies. And he didn't have time to confront the owners of such bodies, because then kids were jumping from everywhere. Sam and Daniel went down instantly, and Jack got off one shot before he was knocked out too. His last sight was of Teal'c being clubbed upside the head by a blond teenager with both her hands clenched together into a powerful fist. And his only consolation was the thud of a bullet hitting something fleshy.

Then he woke up tied to the rest of his team, in the spare bedroom of his cabin.

"Max!" A child's voice called from somewhere to his left. Turning his head carefully, trying not to let whoever it was know he was awake, he saw a little girl, maybe six or seven years old, sitting on the bed. She was looking directly at him.

In a quieter voice, she told him, "I know you're awake."

Jack opened his eyes fully as the door to his right flew open, revealing the blond girl who'd taken Teal'c down. "Angel?" She asked the girl.

"One of them's awake." The little girl, Angel (and she really did look like one, Jack thought), nodded her head to him.

She skirted around the tied up group of four, to look at him. Then she got the same face those System Lords did when SG-1 had managed to screw up their plans again, except it might have been even scarier on her. He thought it was probably the mother's fury in the glare. System Lords didn't have that.

"You're the--" A quick glance at Angel, a shrug "--_bastard_ who shot Nudge."

Jack tried an apologetic smile, and silently hoped it was nonfatal and that these kids were smart enough to take this Nudge to a hospital. "Ah, sorry? But you did sort of attack us."

"You were trying to capture us! And the only reason we aren't far away by now is because I want to know how you jerks keep finding us!" Max said angrily. She was intimidating, but Jack was pretty immune to intimidation by now.

"I think you've got the wrong people, girl. This is my cabin, we're up here for a vacation." And he added under his breath. "Which we're probably not going to get now...." In a slightly whiny tone.

Max eyed him suspiciously, but then Angel spoke up again. "He's telling the truth, Max. All of them have connections to the military, but none to Itex or the others."

Jack took a moment to be confused. Here were some kids who looked like runaways, and acted like they'd been running away from some very dangerous people for a very long time. It could be group insanity or teenage angst over-dramatising everything, but Jack looked into Max's eyes and thought both options were unlikely. But what would Itex, whatever that was, or other people, want with some kids? Jack resolved to be watchful.

"Don't the military have some sort of training in first aid?" Max asked speculatively.

"Yeah...." Jack said, getting a really awful feeling about where this was going.

"Can you remove a bullet safely?"

"No, not here." Jack said, hoping that once this option was taken away these kids would get their Nudge friend to a hospital.

"He's lying. He can do it." Angel said.

Jack cursed and began to wonder how the little girl knew all these things.

"Angel, can you--?"

"I think I can." Angel said with a worried, trustful smile at Max.

Jack realized the two were like some sort of screwy mother-daughter thing.

"We'll test it first, 'kay? And don't worry if you can't."

Jack wondered what they were planning, and why the little girl seemed to be able to know things she shouldn't.

"You're going to take the bullet out of Nudge." Max said to him in a tone that screamed '_This is the leader's final verdict, do not argue!'_

Unfortunately, arguing was what Jack did best. "Take your friend to a hospital, where she can get the care she needs. I'm not doing it."

Max literally growled at him. "Last time we went to a hospital, we wound up in another _experiment_. I don't think so. Now, I think you're an honorable man, and I'm stubborn, and Nudge is shot in the leg because of you, so you're going to fix her up and we'll be gone. You won't ever have to see us again."

And this time, Jack did not argue, because he knew she was right. Max was obviously not going to a hospital, and if he didn't take out the bullet, well, who knew. They might just try it themselves and accidentally kill Nudge.

Before he could answer, another kid called "Max!" and the blond girl was standing.

"Total!" She called, and a mutt dog came trotting in. "Guard." She pointed at SG-1.

The dog looked at them, then at Max, then gave a put-upon huff and made his way to lay on the bed. Angel and Max walked out.

Jack sighed. "This is kind of demeaning." He told Total. "I've never been kept prisoner by some kids and their pet dog before."

The dog might have rolled its eyes, but Jack was probably just imagining it.

* * *

I really doing have a problem with Nudge. I killed her off in another story, and in this one I got her shot! But I meant for it to be Max at first, and then I thought, wait, Max would keep the Flock around potential enemies just for herself.

So, for clarification: Jack thinks they're runaways, Max thinks they're some new Itex goons until Angel says otherwise, and Total doesn't like being treated like a guard dog. Also, this story is in no way related to my other ones, and I don't know when in the series it's set. That everything?

No, one more thing. There will be more! (Chapters, that is)


	2. Situation

Situation

* * *

Eventually, the rest of Jack's team awoke, and he was the one who had to explain what was going on.

"You have to help them." Daniel said in his 'You know I'm right so just listen' voice.

"Yes, Daniel, I know."

What I want to know," Sam spoke up. "Is who they're running from."

Jack shrugged. "Police? I don't know, and it really doesn't pertain to this situation here."

"Yeah, but you said the one girl--Max--thought you were an agent for a group called Itex... Itex... Does that name sound familiar to anyone else?"

"Itexicon is a mega-corporation in many different businesses, including medicine, weapons, and decorative coffee mugs." Teal'c informed them, his gaze somewhere in the distance. "SamanthaCarter owns one of their mugs with the logo on the side."

They sat around staring, dumbfounded, at the Jaffa for a while.

"It's kind of sad when the alien knows more about your planet than you do." Daniel said.

"How _do_ you know all that?" Jack asked.

Teal'c fixed him with a stare. "I do not require sleep. That leaves much time for other activities."

Jack made his 'Oooohhh, I get it now' face. "So they think some big company is out to get them?" Suddenly his earlier theories of exaggerated teenage angst weren't so unlikely. Maybe the kids were hippies?

"There's this thing called 'herd mentality'. If Max, a leader they trust, has somehow deluded herself into thinking they're being hunted, she would be able to convince the others of it as well." Sam tried to explain. "Which would make her very dangerous and volatile."

"She seemed pretty stable to me."

"That's the thing. She wouldn't show any signs of it, or else they would have noticed."

"Guys, I think you're overlooking something." Daniel piped up again.

Jack and Sam turned to him, and Teal'c raised just the one eyebrow.

"What if they're telling the truth? What if they really are in danger?" Daniel said.

He was doing it again. His usual 'I know the right way, and I'm going to let you find it on your own, because if you don't it will mean nothing' kick. Jack thought this was what would have made Daniel king of the Ascended, because he was human and unadvanced and he still knew to his very core what the Ancients were about.

Jack sighed. "Then we report this whole thing and hope the military gets it right."

Daniel seemed faintly disappointed, but that was the best Jack could do.

* * *

Max came in the room at a fast walk, heading right for the bed, where Nudge laid. Her eyes were open, and she looked like she was trying desperately not to show the pain she must have been in. Max's gaze was drawn down to the makeshift bandage around the girl's thigh, stemming the blood flow. It was stained almost entirely red.

"Nudge?" She said, not sure if the girl was completely aware.

"Max? It hurts."

"I know. Angel's going to see if she can make it not hurt, okay?"

"Mmhmm." Nudge nodded slightly.

Max nodded to Angel, who moved onto the bed and put one small hand to Nudge's cheek. The older girl tensed slightly, and then her entire body eased. She sighed and her eyes closed. Not a moment later she was back to sleep.

Max took a wild guess that it was working.

"We need to get the bullet out before the wound heals over." Iggy said from his chair beside the bed. He'd been assigned to guard duty, and to call Max when Nudge awoke.

"I know. I'm working on it." And Max went out again. The look on her face promised pain for any who pissed her off.

* * *

Max came storming into the room just as Daniel was delivering his ultimatum. "Total, come." She commanded.

The dog didn't so much as twitch. In fact, it seemed to be glaring at her. She gave an aggravated grunt. "Come now or you get dog food."

The dog was off that bed and out the door in the time it took Jack to blink. Max stood for a moment longer to glare threatening daggers at SG-1, before slamming the door shut again. Roughly two minutes later, she came back.

"Which one of you is the most experienced in getting a bullet out?"

They looked amongst themselves; Jack had more military time but Sam was intelligent and logical.

"I guess I am." Carter said.

Max looked wary, but approached and began to untie Sam's hands. "Try anything and I'll sick Fang on your friends." She warned.

"Is Fang your other dog?" Jack asked.

Max ignored him. Then she steered the Major out the door, hand on her shoulder. Jack was startled to see that they were the same height. Tall kid.

"Fang's probably a poodle or something." He assured his team.

Daniel sent him another dirty look.

* * *

Sam didn't fight as she was led to see 'Nudge, who she found was resting on the bed in the other room. There was a surprisingly efficient bandage on the wound, and a little girl who she presumed to be Angel sitting next to her with a hand on Nudge's face. There was another teenage boy in there, too, with red hair and freckles. She had already doubted that the runaways were blood-family, and this just proved it.

Even as she reached to remove the bandage, Sam looked to see if Max was okay with this. The girl was tense, ready to fight if Sam hurt the injured child. The bullet had missed all the major arteries, but it was in deep. Sam knew from experience Nudge was in horrid pain, and the girl was probably deep into shock.

"You really should have taken her to a hospital." She said, aware of Max's stony silent presence beside her. "This isn't as bad as it could be, but it's not something that's going to go away nicely. She might never walk right again."

If anything, Max tensed further. "Just get it out." She ground out the words like rocks. "And we'll be fine."

Sam sighed, and gave up trying to get these kids to do the right thing. "I'll need tweezers, antiseptic...."

* * *

Max watched Nudge's face through the entire operation, and the younger girl didn't twitch even once. Angel's face, however, was becoming more and more lined with stress marks as she forced the pain away from Nudge's mind and kept the girl asleep. Every time the woman glanced curiously at Angel, likely wondering why a little girl was being exposed to all this gore, Max felt like snapping at her to get back to the real problem at hand. Nudge was losing more and more blood, and there was no doctor around this time to give her theirs.

Finally, the woman gave a small cry of success and the tweezers, fetched by Gazzy, came up with a small ball of bloody metal pinched between them. Max knew bullets were small, but that something that size could almost kill her little sister.... It was a horrifying thought.

But at least she now knew how to safely preform bullet-removal surgery. Really, it was sheer luck and skill that none of them had gotten shot before now. Max watched the woman quickly and easily wrap the wound in a fresh bandage, also fetched by Gazzy, before she spoke again.

"Thank you." She said, and it was honest. As much as an honorable person's curiosity and well-meaning interference could be a pain, they could usually be counted on to do the right thing.

Sam either didn't hear the quiet words, or she ignored them. "She should be fine in about two months--" Max translated that to about five days with their healing speed. "--but she shouldn't be walking around for at least a month, and she shouldn't be moved for at least two or three days." And that Max translated to: walking by tomorrow, moving/flying in a couple of hours.

Right, they could stay here for a couple of hours and not get attacked, couldn't they?

Why, oh _why_, did she have to pick _this_ cabin to raid for food and shelter?

* * *

Alright, when Max called Total out, it was so he could tell her everything he'd heard SG-1 say. And that's it for the informative part of this AN.

Next: We get a visit from some Flyboys, and there is a giant collective heart attack by SG-1. Also, Nirrti is dissed by some whitecoats.


	3. Weapons

Weapons

* * *

Sam reentered their makeshift cell, once again being led, but by a teenage boy this time. Jack briefly saw red hair and pale skin before Sam twisted in the boy's grip and tried to take him out.

Try being the key word, there. The boy caught her wrist instantly, stopping it from chopping into his windpipe, where he would be effectively silenced and disabled. He turned her wrist at a painful angle, and caught the other hand when it came up to try and make him back off. There was a brief battle of strengths, but the red-haired boy got the upper hand with a kick that knocked Sam off her feet. He then somehow flipped her onto her stomach, and had a knee between her shoulder blades.

Jack blinked and nearly missed it all.

"Fang!" The boy called. He looked altogether too pleased with himself, but he was a teenage boy after all.

A black haired teen appeared in the doorway. Everything about him was dark, from his clothes to his eyes. Jack wouldn't be too surprised to find a couple nasty-looking tattoos somewhere on him, probably of spider webs and skulls.

"Help me get her tied up again." The red-haired one said, jerking his head over towards the rest of SG-1, where Sam's previous bindings were lying. As he did, Jack caught sight of misty blue eyes.

_Holy shit he's blind!_ Jack thought, astounded. Sam had just been taken down by a blind kid--and none of them had even noticed it until now. All of a sudden, Daniel's idea was looking better and better.

"She give you trouble, Ig, or are you just doing that for fun?" Fang asked in a low voice as he retrieved the ropes.

'Ig' managed to glare at him through sightless eyes. "Yeah, that's right. 'Cause I beat on girls for fun and Max hasn't murdered me for it."

Fang's face was still as impassive as Teal'c's but Jack thought he was smiling. You learned to interpret inner feelings after hanging around the Jaffa for as long as he had. Sam was let up and led over to them again, set down on the floor.

"I'll stay." Fang said. "Max put me on guard duty anyway."

Ig nodded, and left.

Maybe it was Fang's stoic similarity to Teal'c that did it, but Jack felt a lot more comfortable with this guard than the creepy little Angel.

"So, you guys are runaways," Jack started, and he saw Daniel attempt to hide his face in shame for his friend. Daniel and the rest of the team knew that Jack was getting started on his usual 'annoy the hell out of the enemy' trick. "Do you eat out of garbage cans or is that just something authors say?" Jack was blindly poking for sore spots.

Fang remained impassive and still, ignoring him.

"I'm betting the personal hygiene problems take away from the fun of adventuring. This cabin was probably like a giant step up for all of you. Hot showers, food, actual beds. Life on the road is tough, we should know(1). And you're all just kids--" A twitch, right there, in his left eyelid. Becoming more pronounced as Jack rambled. "So why would you live like this? Is it Max? Why do you let a girl boss you around?"

And Fang finally reacted to that. "She's the fearless leader, it's what she was born for. I'm not meant to lead. Now stop talking, or I will shut your mouth for you." Fang growled at him menacingly.

But Jack had found an open wound, and he would continue to pick at it. At the mention of Max, Fang had gotten this look, one of mostly unrequited love. Jack guessed, from what he'd seen of the teenage girl, that she didn't want to risk their familial relationship on something that could end badly. It was a classic teenage dilemma. "Do I sense some tension there? You want her job? Or... do you just want her?" And before Jack could go any further, Fang's fist slammed into the side of his head, knocking him slightly senseless, enough for the teen to gag him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack thought he could see Daniel sending a thankful look at Fang. Jack rolled his eyes at Daniel in a way that said, 'Traitor!'.

Daniel shrugged, and his look said 'You were asking for it.'

* * *

Max checked on the prisoners every so often, not even bothering to ask why Fang had gagged the talkative one. The others were keeping silent, probably not wanting to give anything away. The last time she'd done so, Fang was asleep. She knew he'd probably wake up in time if any of their prisoners got free and tried to incapacitate him more permanently, but she was Flock leader and so she worried. Still, they were all tired.

She sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee with enough sugar added to send a normal person into hypoglycemic shock. She was on guard duty as well; there was beer in the fridge and she'd already caught Gazzy twice trying to smuggle some out for himself and probably Iggy as well. They would either drink it or test it's explosive properties, and she wasn't sure which she was more afraid of.

Now that Nudge was cleared, a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. When she'd first heard that gunshot and Nudge's gasp of pain.... She had feared the worst. And then, when that woman said Nudge might never walk the same, Max's first thoughts were of the Flock, of how they'd need to compensate for a partially crippled almost-teenage girl. But she was going to be fine, she was going to be fine.

Max decided there was too much sugar in her coffee; it was fraying her nerves raw. She went to dump it, and set to making more coffee. The resulting sounds made sure that when Gazzy sneaked into the kitchen, eased open the refrigerator door, and removed an entire case of beer, Max didn't hear a thing.

* * *

_Buh-kwoosh!_

Something exploded, and not a few seconds later the smell of smoke reached SG-1.

"What are they doing to my cabin?" Jack bemoaned his fate, but it came out as more of a "Uh ah eh oo-oo oo aye ah-ih?" around his gag.

Fang was on his feet and out the door almost instantly, making Jack doubt he was ever asleep in the first place. Teal'c snapped what little cord was left around his wrists, and with a knife whose previous location Jack didn't even want to know, he set about freeing his companions as well.

* * *

Max rushed into the back yard of the cabin, where she found Iggy and Gazzy about to set off another bomb in the pond. The bomb was vaguely bottle-shaped, and she realized one of them had somehow managed to get some of the beer from the fridge.

"What the heck do you two think you're doing?!" She yelled at them, coming up and grabbing Gazzy--not Ig, who was about to throw an already lit bomb.

"Fishing." The blind bird-kid said, like it was the most sensible and obvious thing in the world, as he tossed the bottle into the pond, where it exploded with a spectacular shower of water.

"Not anymore!" Max dragged the two away from the last four bottles of ready-made bombs, ready to deliver some ear-bleeding reprimands that would be summarily ignored, but make her feel better all the same. However, the several things that happened in the next four seconds changed those plans.

Fang and Angel burst out the door of the cabin, Angel screamed "Company!", and the air clouded over with Flyboys.

Iggy and Gazzy reached for the bottles of explosive right away, and Max was already leaping into the air, slashing out at the bots, trying to get the higher ground. Four explosions thinned the Flyboys' numbers considerably, and the detachable machine guns did wonders in the hands of a careful bird-kid. Max, however, stuck to the basic punch-kick-obliterate routine. Gazzy was running interference for Ig as he assembled a bomb from materials pulled from God-knows-where.

"Go high!" The pyromaniac teen shouted to them, ready to throw his creation.

Max blasted through the gaps in the Flyboy swarm, seeing her family do the same, and a gigantic explosion below took out all but a few of the bots. Max made a quick mental note to commend Iggy on his skill, and search him thoroughly when this was all over. Goddammit, she would find his hiding place one of these days!

And then her resting time was over, and she went in for some clean-up work.

When she'd taken apart her last Flyboy, Max looked around, taking inventory of her Flock. Gazzy was nursing some burns on his hands, Angel was positively exhausted from the effort of both keeping Nudge out of agony and fighting her way through some Flyboys, Iggy was looking very pleased with himself and his new bombs, and Fang was rubbing a sprained wrist, likely caused by punching too many bots. All in all, not their worst fight, especially with thirty-to-one odds.

Then Max looked down.

And she saw four _definitely not captive_ captives.

* * *

Wings.

Feathery, flapping, flying, _wings!_

The kids, those kids, they had--they had wings! All of them! They were flying, too, just hovering up there, like it took no effort at all to do what man had only been dreaming about for centuries.

Jack couldn't believe what he was seeing. Out of all the insane, crazy shit he'd seen with the SGC, this was by far the craziest, the most insane. Because he expected the unexpected when he was offworld, but on his _home planet_...!

And suddenly a lot of it made sense. These kids weren't natural, no matter how much they looked it when they were in the air and looking like they were meant for flight. He had learned things from Sam and Daniel, and he knew bird-people did not happen on their own. They were planned, experiments--

Max had said about the last time they went to a hospital they somehow got into another experiment, which meant they were on the run from their creators, and Itexicon was into medicine, and they were rich enough to bribe the goernment and pay for geneetic research, and these kids were amazing miracles trying to be free in a free coutry and constantly hunted anyway, with no allies--

Jack's thoughts were running in horrible circles, and he didn't like where they were going. People, cruel, awful people had experimented on children, on other people, to create these kids. Fang said Max was born to be the fearless leader, and now Jack realized just how right that probably was.

The pieces were slowly falling into place, as Jack watched bird-kids obliterate hundreds of wolf-people-robots.

_They are living weapons_. He thought faintly.

"It's like what Nirrti was trying to do." Daniel said, his voice and face expressing wonderment. _But so much better_ went unspoken.

And in that instant, Jack knew he had to get protection for these kids. Because if the Trust was somehow able to get their hands on something like this--

Jack shuddered to think about it.

* * *

(1) The episode where SG-1 is sent back in time and travel around in a van with some hippies.

That last part is mostly Jack's thoughts, so if it seems disjointed and choppy, that's because that's my interpretation of Jack's thought processes when faced with something like this. I tell you, it was harder than it looks.

One more chapter to go. I think.


	4. Salute

Salute

* * *

Max was ready for an up-and-away right then and there, but Nudge was still lying prone on the bed and she wouldn't be ready for flying for a while yet. And there was no way they could just abandon her. So they would have to wait another hour or so, and then two of them, probably Max and Iggy, as Fang's sprained wrist would still be healing, would fly her away.

But that left an hour for four people to ask a lot of uncomfortable questions, ones none of them were going to answer.

"Max," Came Angel's soft voice, right beside her. She wondered when the little girl had flown closer. "I know what you're thinking. It will work, but I think I have a better idea...."

* * *

Jack watched the bird-kids descending, landing easily on the grass before the pond. Wings folded loosely, comfortably, around their shoulders. Walking towards SG-1.

They stopped at a safe distance away. And then Max said, "What is the SGC?"

* * *

Angel closely monitored the minds of all four when those words were said. They triggered images and memories in the four people's brains, and between them Angel put most of it together.

"It's a base in Cheyenne Mountain containing a ring called a Stargate made by an alien race called the Ancients, used every day to travel to other planets with Stargates on them. It is run by the military, as Earth's first defense against another race, the Goa'uld. They're--Max, they're parasites who take control of your body and memories. It's horrible. She's had one in her, and him too--" Angel pointed with a shaky finger at the talkative one. "And that man used to carry the larval form involuntarily in his stomach, but it's gone now. They're afraid what will happen if we become hosts, because we're the sort of thing a Goa'uld scientist Nirrti was trying to create, a Hok'taur, an advanced host. And we're dangerous already but the Goa'uld are pure evil. There are some on Earth and they're called the Trust.

"I remember now--hearing whitecoat thoughts. They hate the Trust, they think they're better, and they are, because we humans did what Nirrti couldn't.

"Now they're just starting to realize I can read minds, and Jack--that one--is trying to block me by humming show tunes, and the others are afraid."

They should be, Max thought. There was a little girl who could control their minds standing in front of them.

"It's okay," Angel assured the group. "I won't control your mind unless you try to hurt us. And you won't."

* * *

Jack struggled to wrap his mind around all of this, and while it was a pretty flexible things after all these years, this time things just weren't going well. A mind-reading, mind-controlling six-year-old with wings was spilling all their thoughts out to her friends. That was when he started humming something in his mind. And then he felt oh so reassured when she said she wouldn't mind-control him.

"You don't want us to be captured by the Trust," Angel said again. "So why not take us to a secure military base, with an instant escape hole?"

It was probably mind-control, but Jack thought that sounded like an excellent idea. Dump all this mess onto Hammond's lap. In fact, yes, that's what he would do.

* * *

If he thought driving with his team was bad, Jack was in hell on the way back. Nudge, who couldn't fly yet, was yammering their ears off their heads from her place squished between Daniel and Teal'c. The rest of the Flock, as he'd learned they called themselves, was flying above them, keeping pace with little trouble. They'd have to land outside the mountain, because if anything not bird-shaped and bird-size violated their airspace, there would be armed men everywhere.

But first they were going to Sam's place in town, to call in their little predicament. Jack would have preferred to just walk in, dump the kids on his commander, and walk out, but he doubted they make it past security with six minors and a dog.

One that talked, as he found out.

Shit, if this day could get any weirder, Jack didn't know how.

* * *

Max could tell right away that this portly, bald man didn't really believe their story. But he hadn't seen the proof yet, so that was okay.

"I'm sorry but I find this all rather hard to believe." Well, at least he was honest.

"Let us show you." Said Angel, their liaison. Max really had to take back leadership soon, or Angel was going to get them in trouble.

And at that signal the Flock's wings emerged from the slits on the back of their wind-breakers. Hammond's eyes went wide, and Max felt very proud of her beautiful wings. She just loved these reactions. Eyes went wide and gasps all around, shock and surprise. Max fanned her wings for the full effect.

"Amazing...." Hammond breathed.

Max noticed a loose feather. "About this Stargate...." She started, plucking it.

* * *

"Don't forget to call." Jack said, twirling a tawny feather between his fingers.

Max saluted the man she had come to know, and turned to face the blue wormhole. Her hand reached up, went through the insubstantial liquid-like stuff. She grinned, reached for her Flock's hands, and stepped through.

"Think they'll be safe now?" Daniel asked.

"They're at the Alpha site, they'd better be." Hammond said, turning to go back to his office.

"Yeah, and since when has a secure base stopped _us_ from getting in trouble?" Came Jack's sarcastic answer.

* * *

It's short, and I wimped out on the explanations because I just can't control that many characters at once. Seriously, my limit is at like, three or four. And even then I get sloppy. So this is the end. By the time Max and Flock are cleared to go to the Alpha site, they were on the base for a couple of weeks, staying mostly around SG-1. Max and Jack became a sarcastic duo through their love of annoying the shit out of people they hate.

I'm thinking about a sequel, of one adventure on the Alpha site, likely involving death, a murderer, Flock member as suspect or attempted victim. Or it could be the Trust/Itex trying to get them back. But I still won't write it, probably. I'm lazy like that.


End file.
